Liriano Shuts Down Orioles Orioles 0 at Twins 4 June 11th, 2006 at 4:14 pm

By Kris Richardson

Francisco Liriano had his best start of the season as he pitched 7 shutout innings and allowed just 1 hit and 2 walks. Liriano struck out 6 Oriole batters and more importantly went deeper into the game than he has all season. Liriano’s performance set up the perfect pitching situation for the Twins with Rincon coming in for a solid 8th inning and Nathan finishing up the game in the ninth. Overall the Orioles were held to just 3 hits and 3 walks.

After Hunter’s struggles Saturday night (and in prior games), Gardenhire shook up the lineup by moving Torii to 6th in the lineup and last night’s big hitter, Michael Cuddyer, batted cleanup in the game. Cuddyer didn’t fair too well in his first game at cleanup. He struck out all four times at bat, though one of the strikeouts only occurred in the mind of home plate umpire Ed Rapuano. On a check swing Rapuano claimed the ball got a peice of the bat and called Cuddyer out on strikes. Gardy was thrown out in the 4th arguing that call. Justin Morneau answered the horrible call with a 2-run homer to put the Twins on the board.

The Twins added 2 more runs in the 6th with doubles from Nick Punto and Tony Batista and a single from Luis Castillo, who broke a month long RBI-less streak with the hit.

Game Notes

Morneau’s hot streak continued as he was 2-4 at the plate with another 2 RBIs.
Luis Castillo was 2-4 in the game, hopefully a sign of things to come.
Rondell White struggled again with an 0-3 day. He walked once.
Liriano picked up his fifth win of the year. His ERA sits at 2.10

Looking Ahead

The Twins will have Monday off and then host Boston for a three game series with Johan Santana starting things off against Curt Schilling.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to our RSS feed.

6 Comments

Nick Toye wrote: June 12th, 2006 at 4:12 am

I used to love the baseball that was shown on UK tv, but now I can't seem to find it. I really got into it. Obviously a Yankee fan as anyone who doesn't know much about baseball at first will always follow them.

Kris wrote: June 12th, 2006 at 1:00 pm

Did they show MLB games? If you're willing to fork over some money and really want to watch, MLB.com offers just about every game over the web for a monthly or season subscription. http://mlb.tv

Nick Toye wrote: June 13th, 2006 at 5:09 am

Yeah they used to show them late at night, but now I just don't get the time. Is it expensive and the quality good?

Kris wrote: June 13th, 2006 at 11:35 pm

The quality isn't the best online video you'll find, but it's about as good as you could expect for live streaming through Windows Media Player. You can also watch all archived games as well as condensed games and highlights.

It's somewhat pricey, so you definitely want to make sure you'll watch enough to get your money's worth. $14.95 USD per month.